Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A Season of Evenings

Walking through town just as the light began to fade, I had one of those odd moments when everything falls into a rhythm. A woman in very high heels had just unlocked her bicycle from a pole and began rolling it down the sidewalk toward me, her shoes clicking on the bricks and the hem of her coat fluttering in the breeze. At the same time a second-story window opened and there was the late Jim Morrison's drunken baritone singing "come on now touch me baby." The sound warped a little, carried sideways by the breeze. Just then someone down the street slammed their car door and the alarm went off, a persistent beeping without that edge of harshness it would have had, had it been closer. As I stood still for some seconds, letting the woman in the heels and coat maneuver her bike around me, all of these events became harmonised. Click-click, beep-beep, what was that promise that you made? Click-click, beep-beep, why won't you tell me what she said? The woman looked up toward the open window as she passed me, and suddenly I was flooded with a sense of deja-vu.

In the Russian language there is a word - a verb - to describe the onset of evening: "vechereyet" (вечереет). It's an archaic word, but still used on occasion. The closest English translation would be something like "evening is coming," but the mood is not the same. And it's the mood of that word that's important. You hear it, and you feel an "eveningness" gently setting in. It's an anticipatory state, fostering expectations of moonlight, cricket sounds, a chill in the air, perhaps peals of laugher in the dark. I remembered this word on my way home today. The sun had nearly set and when I looked at the time I saw it was 5:35pm. "This is the last week of October," I thought. A season of early evenings awaits.

Compelling, irresistible imagery sweeping us immediately into your evening streetscape, catching our breath at the beauty, falling too into our senses of evenings past and to come, the mystery of our being. So beautiful, Velouria. An evening to remember!. Thank you for such a surprise gift! Jim Duncan

And I had the opposite feeling earlier this evening (in Christchurch, NZ) when my friends arrived at my house after a ride in the hills. I saw the time was 7:30 and I thought to myself "this is the start of the long evenings and going for rides after work!" And the world turns...

Yes, a book. Bike Snob can do it, so can you. I skim many bike blogs and have read many bike books, and it is very rare that excellent writing (which requires a literary imagination, not just good prose) and good cycling go together -- that is why BSNYC has succeeded (in his own way, obviously, because his imaginative "take" and yours are poles apart).

Speaking of emotional "atmospheres", I don't suppose Russian has an evocative term to include Morrison belting out "LA Woman" in broad daylight on a summer afternoon on a light, classic road bike on a rolling country road? (From celestial speakers?)

Back to books: I recall off the top of my head two epic, really epic, travelogues, Miles from Nowhere and a more recent one whose title I forget. Epic trans-world cycling adventures. But alas, the writers were no Therouxes or Newbys and their frankly pedestrian worldviews diminished their tales. (I must read Devla Murphy -- haven't yet.)

You have the litrary imagination to make even quotidien observations interesting. So, again, please, a book.

It's interesting how there is an implicit assumption that a blog is a stepping stone to a book and that naturally a blogger wants to get recognised/discovered/signed by a publisher. I've had book offers and declined them; I sincerely have no interest. The blog gives me a lot of freedom. I have a wonderful audience. I am compensated by sponsors, who, to their credit, have never tried to influence my content. I can write about whatever I want, as often as I want, as silly and trivial or as serious as I want, and I don't need an intermediary to publish it.

With regard to Bike Snob, I am very pleased for him and he seems to enjoy being a published author. But you might notice that every time a book comes out he has to go on a relentless tour to promote it for like half a year, and also to promote these appearances on his blog, twitter, etc. I am not willing to do any of this. And I assure you there is no money to be made on royalties alone when it comes to a niche genre. I've been down that road before.

I've been published before, and would like to be again in future. But I doubt it will be about cycling.

No! Let's hope most bloggers do *not* write a book! Bad news for reader, author and publisher. You, on the other hand, have the talent. Whether you want to is another matter entirely -- I personally would seek out such a book but understand if you don't want to write one.

Yes Russian has a lot of beautiful words that capture moods. When I read your account and my own blissful memories of autumn twilights, this song came to mind from Sergei Nikitin from the Movie Ирония судьбы (Irony of Fate) a great New Years movie

I learned how to type on one, my bro has a couple. Earlier this year he sent me a real letter...typed on one...from a cafe! I'd love to do that in the MacWorlds that pass for ours, though a few people complimented him on the racket it made.

"Predicted outcome: The book will never get done, but I will start a typewriter blog..."

I have a brother-in-law (one of many) who has a sizable typewriter collection. I gave him my grandfather's 1933 Royal. Damned thing still works. It is as beautiful as a Raleigh Roadster, and possibly weighs more.

This was a treat to read, V. It reminds me of every blustery city evening I can remember.

Also, I cannot get the word "Gloaming" out of my mind's eye, now. Gloaminging?

I was floating in a pool in Tucson, AZ yesterday afternoon, looking at the palm trees in the decidedly October light, thinking exactly the same thing, Velouria. Autumn light is unique and as fragile as ancient stained glass. Look through it gently.

There is a separate word for twilight. Twilight refers to the quality of light, but this word is more encompassing, plus the unusual thing about it, is that it's a verb. So, in English, it would be like saying "It's eveninging."

I've got a painter friend in the UK who goes out and paints the evening every day for, so far, slightly over one thousand days and counting. The language is, of course, the mark but the experience is what counts.

What the hell is going on here? People wandering around in the damn dark like the unemployed, muttering in foreign languages, lurking under windows listening to God knows what... GO HOME! Watch you some damn TV like the rest of us AMERICANS!

Get a dang job if you got nuthin better to do than swan around casing the neighborhood. And where was yer damn bike? This is a BIKE BLOG fer cryin out loud, not the freakin' Christian Science Reading Room.

You know what I love about this blog—apart from the author's gift with words and the alchemy of turning the complex into the simple—is the commentary. I always love to read everyone's two-bobs-worth; from the effusive, to the slightly acerbic; the thoughtful and knowledgeable to the downright funny. More please!

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